1940: THE YEAR OF FALLING NATIONS: The Second World War: A Seven-Volume Series — Volume Two

1940: THE YEAR OF FALLING NATIONS

The Second World War: A Seven-Volume Series — Volume Two

Quentin Drummond Anderson

The year the world stood on the edge of darkness — and one nation refused to surrender.

At the beginning of 1940, Europe waited in an uneasy silence. Within months that silence would be shattered. Hitler’s armies would unleash a new form of warfare, nations would collapse in weeks, and the future of civilisation itself would hang in the balance.

In 1940: The Year of Falling Nations, bestselling military historian Quentin Drummond Anderson tells the story of the most dramatic year of the Second World War — the year in which the conflict could have been lost.

From the frozen fjords of Norway to the forests of the Ardennes, from the shattered roads to Dunkirk to the skies above southern England, this sweeping narrative follows the commanders, soldiers, pilots, politicians and ordinary civilians caught in history’s turning point.

Witness:

• The end of the Phoney War and Germany’s lightning conquest of Europe

• Manstein’s audacious Sickle Cut and the fall of France

• The miracle and tragedy of Dunkirk

• Churchill’s rise at Britain’s darkest hour

• The desperate War Cabinet debates over whether to fight on or seek peace

• The courage of “The Few” in the Battle of Britain

• The endurance of London and Britain’s cities during the Blitz

• The first steps towards the alliance that would eventually defeat Nazi Germany

France fell. Europe was conquered. Britain stood alone.

But 1940 was not only the year of falling nations — it was the year one nation refused to fall.

A gripping work of narrative history, 1940: The Year of Falling Nations continues Quentin Drummond Anderson’s landmark seven-volume account of the Second World War: the story of the leaders who shaped it, the warriors who fought it, and the ordinary people who endured it.